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Saturday, December 19, 2015

The First Hostage by Joel C. Rosenberg

ISBN13: 9781496406156Tyndale Fiction - Hardcover $26.99

“The president of the United States . . . is missing.”

With these words, New York Times journalist J. B. Collins, reporting from the scene of a devastating attack by ISIS terrorists in Amman, Jordan, puts the entire world on high alert. The leaders of Israel and Palestine are critically injured, Jordan’s king is fighting for his life, and the U.S. president is missing and presumed captured.

As the U.S. government faces a constitutional crisis and Jordan battles for its very existence, Collins must do his best to keep the world informed while working to convince the FBI that his stories are not responsible for the terror attack on the Jordanian capital. And ISIS still has chemical weapons . . .

Struggling to clear his name, Collins and the Secret Service try frantically to locate and rescue the leader of the free world before ISIS’s threats become a catastrophic reality.

My thoughts: After reading several of Joel C. Rosenberg’s previous novels, I was delighted to have the opportunity to review The First Hostage as a Tyndale reviewer. Regretting having not read The Third Target which is the prequel to The First Hostage, I still plunged into this new story and tried, mentally and emotionally, to keep up with the breathless fast pace it runs from crack of spine to flip of the last page.

Amazing! That is simply a mild term for Mr. Rosenberg’s talent for writing and for bringing the reader into the staged situation that could easily be born from any major news channel’s “breaking news” or the headlines of leading international news papers. I was truly intrigued with the plot of this story which begins where The Third Target left off - the United States President having been captured by ISIS and is being held in an undisclosed location with the clock ticking.

Leading male protagonist, J.B.Collins is a world-acclaimed journalist who has interactions with leading political figures across the world. His contacts and insight has led him to advise world leaders, including the US President, that the scheduled meeting of Middle Eastern leaders with the President of the United States is being targeted by ISIS and these leaders should not convene. They do not heed his warning and thus a deadly attack takes place with many lives lost and the President missing.

Mr. Rosenberg’s personal experiences and knowledge of Middle Eastern politics certainly has prepared him to write definitively and with arguably a depth of knowledge few hold. He seems to understand not just the basic history of the Middle East but the political history and current political temperature as well.

Believable, well drawn characters race through this exciting and fearsome story where Rosenberg has painted scenes and sprinkled dialogue tersely throughout.

Rosenberg writes with the pen of an Evangelical Christian; and while done sparingly he does, none-the-less, have his main protagonist, Collins, struggling with a total commitment to Christ.

I believe, or rather I hope, there might be a third book in this series as I can sense threads of plot that could be deftly woven into a third book for this series. We had The Third Thread and The First Hostage, and now what will you bring your readers Mr. Rosenberg?

AUTHOR: Joel C. Rosenberg is the New York Times bestselling author of ten novels—The Last Jihad, The Last Days, The Ezekiel Option, The Copper Scroll, Dead Heat, The Twelfth Imam, The Tehran Initiative, Damascus Countdown, The Auschwitz Escape, and The Third Target—and five nonfiction books: Epicenter, Inside the Revolution, Implosion, Israel at War, and The Invested Life, with more than 3 million copies sold. The Ezekiel Option received the Christian Book Award as the "Best Novel of 2006" from the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association. Joel is the producer of two documentary films based on his nonfiction books. He is also the founder of The Joshua Fund, a nonprofit educational and charitable organization to mobilize Christians to "bless Israel and her neighbors in the name of Jesus" with food, clothing, medical supplies, and other humanitarian relief.

As a communications advisor, Joel has worked with a number of U.S. and Israeli leaders, including Steve Forbes, Rush Limbaugh, Natan Sharansky, and Benjamin Netanyahu. As an author, he has been interviewed on hundreds of radio and TV programs, including ABC's Nightline, CNN Headline News, FOX News Channel, The History Channel, MSNBC, The Rush Limbaugh Show, The Sean Hannity Show, and The Glenn Beck Show. He has been profiled by the New York Times, the Washington Times, the Jerusalem Post, and World magazine. He has addressed audiences all over the world, including those in Israel, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Russia, and the Philippines. He has also spoken at the White House, the Pentagon, and to members of Congress.

In 2008, Joel designed and hosted the first Epicenter Conference in Jerusalem. The event drew two thousand Christians who wanted to "learn, pray, give, and go" to the Lord's work in Israel and the Middle East. Subsequent Epicenter Conferences have been held in San Diego (2009); Manila, Philippines (2010); Philadelphia (2010); Jerusalem (2011); Albuquerque, New Mexico; (2012) and Jerusalem again in 2013. The Epicenter Conferences have allowed thousands of people from more than ninety countries to listen to speakers such as Israeli Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon; pastors from the U.S., Israel, and Iran; Lt. General (ret.) Jerry Boykin; Kay Arthur; Janet Parshall; Tony Perkins; Anne Graham Lotz; and many others.

The son of a Jewish father and a Gentile mother, Joel is an evangelical Christian with a passion to make disciples of all nations and teach Bible prophecy. A graduate of Syracuse University with a BFA in filmmaking, he is married and lives with his family in Israel.

DISCLOSURE: I was provided a complimentary copy by Tyndale Blog Network on behalf of Tyndale Fiction and the author to facilitate this review. Opinions are my own, alone, and I was not compensated for this review.

1 comment:

Rosenberg has long been on my TBR list, and I find myself a little shocked I haven't actually read anything by him yet. Will have to remedy that soon! Thanks for sharing this at Booknificent Thursday this week! I hope you have a lovely Christmas Eve followed by the merriest of Christmases!Tina

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